According to state of the art, methods and structures are known for using a single option Read Only Memory (ROM) image to configure and boot a computer system using one or more converged network adapters or a set of adapters. A converged network adapter card utilizes a single option ROM to support configuring and booting the protocols of the multifunction converged network adapter. In one embodiment the single option ROM stores a sequence of images to support configuring and booting the network interface card (NIC) and storage protocols supported by the converged network adapter (CAN) card and to support all of the boot solutions for the converged network adapter card.
Such methods typically include a system BIOS of a computer system reading a single option ROM associated with a converged network adapter (CNA) card to obtain information for booting and configuration. The single option ROM has a sequence of images to support all of the protocols of the adapters of the CNA, and supports all of the boot solutions for the converged network adapter card. The option ROM image is loaded into memory by the system BIOS, and a call is made to the initialization routine. This routine then scans for all of the adapters present on the system, reads the configuration parameters stored in flash memory on each adapter found, and proceeds to set up preboot execution environment (PXE) bootstrap entry vector (BEV) entries and storage boot connection vector (BCV) entries based on the parameters read. This enables the user to use one adapter present on the system for PXE boot, one for Fiber Channel over Ethernet (FCoE) boot and another for iSCSI boot without actually having separate option ROM images on all of them. This design of one option ROM image serving all adapters present on the system eliminates the effort required to update each adapter with an option ROM image, and reduces the memory footprint as only one option ROM image is loaded into memory, and initialized leaving space for other option ROMs to load and initialize.